Many conventional media player software applications and media player devices (e.g. MP3 players, Cell phones, Personal Digital Assistants, etc.) provide a user with an ability to play media content such as audio files, videos or other multimedia data from playlists created by the user. A playlist may be an arrangement or sequence of individual media content items arranged in an order specified by the user, or a playlist may simply be a library of media contained in storage or memory accessible to the device or software. The user operates media player software on a computer or embedded within the media player itself to create playlists by selecting specific content items (e.g. songs) from a library of available content and placing those content items into the playlist in an order desired and specified by the user. Once created, the media player software or media player device typically provides the ability for the user to save a playlist for future access. After creation of a playlist, the user can operate the software or media player device to begin play back of the content items listed in the playlist in the order specified by the playlist. A playlist thus allow a user to create a list of favorite audio tracks or other content items in an order desired by that user and the user can save the playlist to allow playback of the items in the play list in the order specified by the user (i.e. as indicated by the order of the content items in the playlist).
After a user operating a conventional media player device or playback software has listened to a playlist of content items several times, he or she may become accustomed to the order of the songs or other content items specified in the playlist. As an example, if the user creates a playlist of ten songs from various artists and listens to that playlist several times, the user may become quite used to the sequence of those songs in the order specified by the play list and the user will be able to predict the next song that follows a song presently being played back. To avoid this predictability and to enhance the enjoyment of the user experience when listening or viewing content played back from a playlist, many conventional media player devices and media player software applications provide the ability to randomly shuffle the order or sequence of content items in a playlist. When a user selects a shuffle or random feature to be applied to a playlist of content items, the media player device or media player software engages in a process of randomly rearranging content items for playback from the playlist. As an example, for a playlist of ten songs, the shuffle feature of a conventional media player device or media player software will randomly rearrange the order of the songs in the playlist and begin playback of those songs in accordance with the newly chosen random order. In dong so, a conventional shuffle operation provides the user with a random presentation or playback of content items in an order not originally specified by the playlist to avoid the predictability and user boredom that results from listening to or viewing the same content items in the same order as arranged in the original playlist.